Somerset School Committee vacancy to be filled by appointment

Thursday

Jun 13, 2013 at 12:01 AMJun 13, 2013 at 1:04 PM

The deadlock over the unfilled School Committee seat will be settled by appointment, not a special election.

Impassioned speeches by the chairmen of the School Committee and Board of Selectmen held no sway on Wednesday night, as the two other selectmen voted to fill the seat through an appointment process in which the seven members of both boards will have a say.

Michael Holtzman

The deadlock over the unfilled School Committee seat will be settled by appointment, not a special election.

Impassioned speeches by the chairmen of the School Committee and Board of Selectmen held no sway on Wednesday night, as the two other selectmen voted to fill the seat through an appointment process in which the seven members of both boards will have a say.

That process will start at a joint meeting of the two boards at 6:30 p.m. on June 20 at North Elementary School.

The earliest anyone could secure the fifth School Committee seat is a week later, on June 27, because the law requires a seven-day notice, Town Counsel Clement Brown said.

School Committee Chairman Donald Rebello and Vice Chairman Robert Camara joined the dissenters.

Before the 2-1 vote, Rebello said there was unanimous consent among his four committee members to find “at least $5,000” in education funds to help offset the estimated $10,000 to $12,000 Town Clerk Delores Berge estimates a special election would cost.

“It’s still our money. It’s town money,” Lebeau told Rebello.

“We want our next member to be elected, not appointed,” Rebello told selectmen, saying his board was “united” in that stance.

After making the $5,000 offer, Rebello, seated with Camara in the front row, said, “We do not wish to serve with an appointee… We wish to serve with the people’s choice.”

They took a 4-0 vote to that effect at a previous School Committee meeting.
“This is a rare and unique situation that doesn’t happen very often,” said Setters, who’s made his preference for a special election known since the May 23 recount, when Jamison Souza, the incumbent, and Melissa Terra, a challenger, remained deadlocked despite each gaining two votes more than their tallies from the election 10 days earlier.

During citizen comments, which included both appointment and election preferences, Terra offered one of the more interesting compromises: a coin flip to break a deadlock that does not legally exist anymore.

Terra said she did not know if that could legally affect what the boards jointly decide. But she proposed that if she and Souza were the only ones vying for the seat, they could agree to flip a coin, with the loser dropping out of contention.

“If we chose that at the recount, I would have been fine with it,” Souza said while discussing such a scenario with Terra prior to the appointment debate.

Souza said he thought there remained “a legal question. I don’t think you can just flip a coin,” he said.

Setters, reacting to comments by Lebeau that a special election typically draws a low turnout, said, “I don’t care if only 1,500 people show up for an election. We cannot lose faith in our election process.”

He said making an appointment after a resignation or death in office would be different, and he could support the appointment process in those cases.

After drawing silence when he sought a motion for a special election, Setters asked his colleagues to “reconsider.”

Berge started the discussion when she submitted a “failure to elect” to the School Committee on May 24, the day after the recount.

Berge recently said an election could not be held for 66 days in accordance with election calendar requirements. That would put the date at Aug. 19 if she received a written directive from selectmen on Friday, she said in an interview this week.

“I don’t think waiting another two months is in the best interests of the public,” Lebeau said.

He emphasized the appointee would need to go before the electorate in May to remain in office. He emphasized the cost of special elections, saying, “It doesn’t make financial sense.”

Kathryn Coray of 55 Merton St. objected to Lebeau’s prediction of a low turnout in a Herald News story earlier this week. “It’s like the people that took time to vote don’t matter,” she said.

She questioned how selectmen could spend an extra $35,000 on a trash contract and reject spending $12,000 for an election.

Cheryl Crosley-Simmons of 570 Main St. had the opposite view. She said selectmen decide discretionary spending. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot to me,” she said.

A legal point by Brown left one key decision up in the air. He said the boards are not required to solicit candidate applications for the vacancy, but added that soliciting applications is customary.

Afterwards, Terra said she was happy with the board’s decision.
Souza straddled the fence.

“I believe in democratic elections,” he said, “but I understand the fiscal restraints the town is in.”